Illel's Story
by maikeru333
Summary: Story about a character I play in dnd. I made this up mostly as backstory, but I'm enjoying it so I might pull it into the present game and continue it. How Illel survived her Elven clan's massacre by Drow elves long ago.
1. Smoke and Blood

Finally, dawn came, not witness to the horrors and screams of the night, but merely to their echoes - smouldering fires, the smell of blood and burning flesh and wood. Towering trees lay toppled, or were charred hulks; remnants of rope and wood aerial walkways, homes in the trees, dangled limply in absolute surrender. Bodies hung lifeless from some of these trees, some who were probably burnt alive, spiked to the trees, others dangled from ropes, their meat fresh and exposed, though drained of blood, some with their skin left carelessly on the ground beneath them. But no carrion had yet taken to the fallen. Perhaps, they, too, were still in sorrow, that the guardians of the forest had fallen.

All except one. A great, dark beast, a king amongst wolves, black thick fur blowing back, as it raced the wind, through the pathes of the forest, the scent of death growing stronger to it as it propelled itself with relentless speed. Onward, straight toward the ruins of the once-great hidden forest-top city.

The choking smoke of the night had mostly given way to morning mist, and the sun was melting the obscuring veil with its bold, unrelenting rays, revealing the truth of what had been, what remained. The wolf stalked through the bodies, but it did not feed. It surveyed the carnage carefully, an unyielding, unfathomable intelligence hidden behind its black eyes.

Hordes of tracks crossed the ground that was normally untouched, pristine in this forest. Booted tracks. The smell of blood. Elven blood... –sniff- Some of it Sylvan – belonging to 'wood' elves. But not all of it of the denizens of the forest city - Drow had been here. In great numbers. A mostly intact body of a fallen sylvan male elf warrior, still clasping to an ivory blade, was pierced through with arrows, some still oozing with black poison on their tips, mixed with blood.

Suddenly, the wolf stopped its wandering gait through the blackened bodies and undergrowth, turning its head up, sniffing several times. Doppelgangers? Illithids? The smells of creatures and things of the deep dark... rare creatures to this forest... smells of things never welcomed into the secret forest city before.

The body of a male sylvan elf child, grip locked still around a small elvencraft bow, lay with its throat slit open, eyes rolled back, it's back bent and ribs broken from a fall. The wolf's dark black eyes absorbed it all, unflinching. It was a great city, and mostly there'd been bodies of the Drow littering the forest floor... where was the rest of the clan? Perhaps some had survived the onslaught. The wolf made its way purposefully towards the center of the city.

The trees and brush parted, and fresh smoke billowed into the sky still in the near distance, just past the imposing trees. Beyond them, the smouldering remnants of the spirit trees stood, their once silver, sparkling trunks and silver leaves now covered only in the gore of the masses of dismembered, mutilated, charred bodies nailed in various fashions over them. The wolf stopped, its huge form hunching, then let a bellowing, mournful howl that echoed with a wave of sadness, expanding outward from the city, the untouched trees beyond the city's reach bowing as if blown by a great wind as the howl passed over them.

Deep green eyes with specks of gold shot open, at the blood-curdling, mournful sound of a wolf, echoing from the heart of the city. Terror was etched on her face, tracks from silent tears still marred the small elven girl's face. She wore shorts of treated, leatherized leaves, and a top made of a band of woven moss that wrapped around her chest and waist, and over her shoulders. Her silver bangs were braided in a loop to a partial braid at the back of her head, but the hair, which had been carefully taken care of by her mother only the night before, was wet and clumped to her head from sweat. Her breath came in forced, quiet gasps, as she tried to stifle the sound of her breathing, as she looked out from her hiding place. It was a place meant to purify moonsilk, deep within a stone about 10' high and vaguely dome shaped, red on the outside, but from which you could see out perfectly - though no light - or traces of magic or psi - escaped from within - a perfect hiding place against the betrayers, and the brain-eaters.

But the psi-magic amplification of the bloodstone alcove had another, truly unfortunate effect: the emotions, the pain, the sorrow, the blood fervour of her kin, the psychic traces of the horrible ways they died, all these, too were amplified, and gathered and echoed in that little chamber. Her fists were still clenched tight, even when sleep had finally overcome her, long after the main of the battle was over, her kin slain. Her red-rimmed eyes were now locked open, huge saucers of eyes on such a young elven girl. She strained, listening intensely, fiercely at the quiet, the crackle of still burning wood startling and sudden in intensity to her - yet she did not move a muscle, nor let a whisper of a sound free. Terror had gotten deep into her soul, and had a stranglehold on it. The things she had seen and heard and felt that night would echo within her deeply, always that clenching stranglehold of terror, or horror, haunting her dreams, corrupting sweet youth with dreams of escape, and of vengeance... and of loss. And an unshakeable loneliness... loneliness that would hound her, find her in those times she sought the comfort of family…

0 0 0

Stirring on the cold, hard floor, she woke from the nightmare to see the others huddled in a circle still, the wizard sitting lotus with a closed blue-dragonskin spellbook floating before him, but obviously still in reverie. The feral halfling was half-snoring, half growling in his sleep; occasionally an ear would twitch as if hearing something, then an eye would snap open, then just as fast he would be asleep again. The dervish stood sentry, but they expected no more danger here, now - and he was focussed on spinning and whirling in intricate patterns with his pair of scimitars, one shining in the dim light like the moon, the other dark as night.

She let out her breath slowly, consciously, relaxing her clenched fists and jaw, sitting up and stretching briefly, her eyes taking in the dungeon beneath the ruins of Hornung's tower, a few hours outside of Achellar in Halrua. She thought of how big a change it had been, from their long journeying by caravan, or travelling weeks by ship in the Sea of Stars, to being able to jump half way across the known world in a matter of days. The wizard's power had increased; not only that, but they'd been joined by a Wind-walker worshipper of Shaundakul, patron deity of travel and portals. Which had come in handy the past few days they'd been exploring the tower - some of the traps and barriers they couldn't disable, so to bypass them they would have to use travel magic. Thus they camped in the dungeon to save on magic.

She lay back down, flashes of her dreams still poking up from submersion in her still cobweb-covered subconscious. She inhaled deeply, feeling the cool, musty air fill her, putting her attention on it. fwoooo! She exhaled slowly through her mouth, keeping her attention on the feeling of breathing. Slowly, she brought her mind to one of her happy places, nestled snugly in the boughs of a tree, the wind rocking her gently, far from the uncaring world below... and the even less caring world beneath it. Soon, she returned to reverie... and her troubled dreams.

O O O

The great wolf approached the spirit trees slowly at first, surveying the slaughter sharply, picking out faces, looking to identify individuals. With a bound the wolf burst into a run, towards one of the spirit trees - running headlong into the tree - then turning upwards and sprinting up the side of the tree, deftly slipping past bodies as smoke and char hissed and broke from its paws as it ran.

Instead of youthful elves, here, at this place, high up on this one great tree, were the elders of the tribe. One in particular had been dismembered, with parts spaced a meter or so from one another, somewhat haphazardly. But there, in the center, was the head of the high elder Ashimshi, nailed to the tree through the forehead with a shortsword of dark elven craftsmanship. There, the wolf stopped, it's head an arms-length away, panting loudly, precariously perched on the side of the tree.

The elder's pupils rolled back into view, looking at the wolf, seeing into it, and KNOWING.

"There is one... the bloodstone... go from here... they return for the trees," the elder's voice rasped like the sound of a breath of wind through leaves, answering questions left unasked. His eyes rolled back in his head, as his life-force finally fled, and wind suddenly stirred and blew ash and smoke into the air. The wolf turned and raced back down the tree.

O O O

She could hear it coming from far away... the heavy footsteps, bounding and tearing past brush and trees and bodies. Her tiny heart began to race, her eyes widening: it seemed to be heading straight for her. It was coming for her! They'd found her!

The footsteps slowed, and a beast twice her height at its shoulder came into view. It was cloaked in fur the colour of night, breathing hard, sniffing. Its black eyes stared through the walls of the alcove at her. She reminded herself that it could not see through, pleaded that the words her parents told her were true. She held her breath, as its nose touched the side of the alcove, saw the red of the outside reflected in its black, lightless eyes. It growled in a bizarre fashion, as if speaking some unknown language, and began to push its face through the side of the alcove. She reached over beside her, to grab the short elvencraft bow that lay beside her, starting to shake and jitter uncontrollably, holding her breath, her face tightening.

She held out hope until the very moment its head had pushed it's way through, until its eyes had penetrated, and she could see its eyes lock onto her, meet her eyes, and it seemed ready to lunge forward. That was when she started swinging, forcefully, with one hand wielding the bow like a club, flailing wildly at it, trying to hold it back, a scream caught in her throat, breaths coming in gasps as she could hold it no longer, but she couldn't bare to make a noise...

She may have struck it once, but then it knocked the bow from her hands. She squeezed her eyes shut, thrashing out with her hands, all the while keeping her left fist, and the treasure she held within it, closed...

O O O

A hand reached out and grabbed her forearm, held her, and she opened her eyes in surprise. The beast had grown an arm from its chest, and as she watched, the creature morphed and shifted, fur giving way to a flowing cloak. A man's face looked down at her, ancient yet vibrant. Deep blue eyes, holding the ocean and sky, gazed down at her, and the deep sorrow and compassion she saw in them gave her pause, startled her. There was something vaguely familiar about the face. She stopped fighting, and stared dumbfounded, eyes wide, as he pulled her into his arms and buried her head in the fabric of his cloak and his chest. Silently, tears began to stream down her face.

"What is your name, little one? Are you ok?" The little elven girl said nothing, her face empty of expression, her spirit exhausted, deadened with the ordeal, the weight of what she had seen. The druid looked and saw her left hand clenched.

"What are you holding there?" He reached to open her hand and see, but she pulled away from him and pulled it to her chest, her face contorting in protest. "Are these your things?" He said, gesturing toward a small satchel and the things within it, the bow on the ground, as he gathered them up and passed them to her. She accepted them blankly.

"We can't stay here," he said gently but firmly, as he guided her toward the wall, and they both began to merge with, and pass through the stone wall of the alcove.

"We must go, but there is something I must do first," he said calmly. Stepping away from her, and throwing his cloak back, revealing wide shoulders, the hilt of a scimitar, and some sort of well-crafted hide armour.

O O O

"Aiyashta Danaan shiii-daru ...-" the druid began to chant words, incomprehensible to her, that hinted of fey, sounding like each word was charged with magical energy and meaning. He spread his arms wide, and a sudden wind began to blow about him, and billow his cloak this way and that.

His words seemed to resonate, pierce through her soul: it was magic, she knew, but it was not like the magic of her people; but it was not entirely foreign either. She watched silently, for a moment, her fears forgotten.

"GIBRALTA NiNUMEN DIJENGIA," his voice boomed now, though gentle, it seemed to come from all around her, as the wind began to stir the forest all about them. The sky, empty and clear save for faded plumes of smoke, began to thicken, roil and churn, clouds forming. There was a low growl, that turned into a deep grumble, that rolled towards them from the distance. The sky began to darken, turning shades of purple and blue and green and all shades of gray. The wind began to whisper, then howl, chasing in chaotic cirles, blowing this way and that, then to shriek and whistle through the trees. Somehow the man seemed impossibly tall, his eyes seemed almost to glow with power, as his cloak whipped about him.

"Daish'tana Remaidu NiTara," there was a crack, a momentary, blast of wind, and then the sky blazed with light, an arc lancing from the heavens and striking in the distance, beyond their view, connecting with one of the spirit trees. The air roared as the heavens were split asunder, and she turned away from the blinding light, only faintly hearing the man's voice beneath the roaring.

A few seconds passed, then the roaring and light stopped. In the distance, a deep sound of wood cracking, and something immense falling; scarcely had the vibrations from the roaring thunder subsided than the ground shook as of something huge collapsing into it.

The wind grew cooler and wetter, then rain began to fall in a drizzle that whipped hard into her face, so she squeezed her eyes half closed, still listening to the druid's voice speaking words of power into the sky. Lightning shattered the sky again for many seconds, the wind blasting and roaring with fury, and there was another crash. She did not count the number of times, but she knew before he was done, that there would be one great bolt for each of the spirit trees.

He paused for a moment, only a moment, looking over to her, and spoke more words of power, "Clatou, verata, Nictou!" Brambles and thorns and growth began surging from the ground, growing to cover the forest floor, growing thickly together, making things nearly impassable, and covering over the bodies, drow and sylvan alike, that lay there. The rain began to beat down, beating in pulses with the wind.

The man stepped towards her, kneeling low, beckoning her to him, and she obliged hesitantly.

"Do not be afraid," he said to her calmly, with gentleness in his eyes. He stood and turned, and his form began to shift and darken, black fur sprouting from him all over, and a great dark beast stood before her once again.

It turned and grasped her gently in its maw, lifting her to its back. She straddled it and grabbed a fist-full of fur, feeling herself sink into its softness. It began to move, first a walk, then a run, the wind rushing by. They ran straight through brambles and bushes, but none touched nor snagged the wolf. They ran straight towards a mammoth tree on the outskirts of the village that dwarfed all those around it. The wolf began to growl strange unintelligible, guttural sounds, just as they burst headlong into the tree...

...and entered INTO it. There was an overwhelming feeling of lightness, of being one with the trees, their spirits, a pervading sense of gentleness and calmness. Then suddenly they burst out into the light and world again, the sky only faintly overcast overhead here, with light shining brightly on the horizon. Illel Soroswol, the last of her clan, watched wide-eyed as the world rushed past them. Then, slowly, her head lowered. She buried her face into the soft fur, her grip still tight on the fur, and let the world fade away from her.

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	2. of Falls and Cocoons

"The reason they nailed your people to the spirit trees was to prolong their suffering. That is part of the evil nature of the Drow. The distance between the spirit world and this one is not so far, by those trees. It is horrible to suffer this way, for so long, but in the end, I'm glad they did it: your Elder Ashimshi lived long enough to tell me of you, where you were hiding. Otherwise I would not have found you."

The elven girl began to shiver like a leaf, the emptiness and shock in her giving way to a shimmering gloss of welling tears. Her face scrunched momentarily, then she was still and calm again, her mind someplace else. Maybe she was not ready to be drawn out yet. But Astyanax persisted, gently, his voice quiet, soothing like a gentle breeze, "To be witness to such tragedy, and horror, is horrible, but it is also a natural part of this world. Some say this is to have your innocence stolen. In truth, it is ignorance, which is lost - ignorance to the depths of evil that exist in this world. But good and evil are peculiar things... like light and darkness, they have a way of defining each other, creating each other. Each has a place in this world," she looked up at him with a forlorn look at this, so he was quick to add, "What happened to your people, your family... it was evil hard to imagine, it's not fair." He continued, "but horrible things happen to good people all the time, for no reason at all, no 'fault' of their own. Some people try to say that there is fault, or strain to understand the reasons behind the strings of fate, overwhelmed and frustrated by things beyond their understanding, that perhaps they were not meant to understand, at the time. You can shout at a mountain for a rockslide, or the rains for a flood, but in the end, you don't hate them, and if you fear them enough to be cautious and learn their ways, it only makes you wise. But part of your shock, part of your burden, is knowing that the horrors you witnessed were done by conscious, sentient beings -thinking, feeling- whose ears were deaf to the cries of those they tormented, finding even pleasure in the suffering they brought."

Astyanax watched her mutely watching the swaying brush and trees in the breeze, her head swaying with them, but he continued on, hoping some small piece of the meaning behind his words would stay with her, that one day they would find her as she searched her own soul for meaning. "So people lose their ignorance, and know of the dark things in this world. And knowing"... he paused a moment, finding his words, "knowing, they become touched by the darkness, like a seed, growing in them." He wasn't sure she would be able to understand, and looked for way to express it, that her people would know, a way familiar to her, something her family may have shown to her... "Seeds can grow to become many things... It is like a seed of light and darkness, all in one..." He trailed off, as she scratched her leg and began to swing her legs beneath the branch she sat on."

The sky was very blue, birds were singing, the air was sweet with fragrant aromas and the fresh smell of trees. A stream trickled and burbled quietly in the distance, and occasionally the trees would sigh, as if, as one, they were breathing. It was just like Illel, on the surface; but beneath, he knew dark storms still raged. The druid sighed gently, and let the sun shine down on his closed eyes briefly, enjoying the quiet, sorrowful at the ill it concealed, but knowing well the virtue of patience.

"Whatever you nurture, will grow. If you want to grow the plant of happiness, and goodness, and light, you must shower what you grow with love and care. But if you shower the seeds with fear, and anger, and hate, what grows is a weed that will stifle the goodness." He paused again, and her face briefly flickered towards him, before she went back to chasing butterflies with her eyes. "When you have been touched by darkness, as we all are in different ways, at different times in our lives - from then on, you lose your ignorance of evil, and doing good, nurturing the good, becomes a choice - sometimes a difficult one. And that is why, when many people touch darkness, they lose their innocence - sometimes that choice becomes too hard to make, people get lost and cannot follow the seed of light in them..." Illel had stood up, grasping Astyanax' cloak for support, and was coaxing a caterpillar from a higher branch onto her hand, lost intently in its world, as it made little movements to push itself forward.

"Darkness can force someone's heart, their innocence, into a cocoon, for a time - but it is not lost, for there it sleeps, waiting for something, to awaken it ..." She raised the caterpillar to his face triumphantly, a hint of pride and joy in her face, perhaps seeking approval in the manner young ones are wont to do.

"And when it awakens, it fights to break free from its cocoon, from the things that once protected it, yet bind it, and finally, it becomes a butterfly, free from the sorrows of those bound to the earth." She gently coaxed the caterpillar now, from her hand, back onto a leaf.

"Have patience and courage, little one," he said quietly, as she suddenly lost her balance and fell from the branch.

He dove off the branch after her, sprouting wings in midair, and seizing her firmly in his talons, winged through some leaves with her before alighting with her on another branch.

"Hmm. We'll have to do something about that, too," Astyanax said quietly to himself.

2007-05-17-1624h

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	3. Seeds of Hope

Chapter 3 - Seeds of Hope

The druid woke gently from sleep that, although recuperative, carried the theme of worry for what he should do for his little charge, throughout. The night was alive with music; the choruses of animals and insects, and the beginning stirrings of some birds, as the sky started to lighten to twilight, the stars blazing brilliantly and twinkling in their own mystical, beautiful play of light.

Worry caught him off-guard, when he noticed the little elf girl was no longer where she had been resting, his cloak laying in a heap where she had been. The night before, she had been shivering, so he had put his cloak over her, not realizing she was not shivering because of the chill night air. When he had stroked her hair, and spoke some reassuring words in her family's elvish dialect, she had seemed to settle and become more at ease, at least for a short time.

Astyanax stood quietly, bent over so as not to hit the canopy of leaves and branches that wove and grew together above him to provide a small amount of shelter, and stepped into the moist grass and leaves barefoot, walking about the encampment towards where he saw a small form sitting on a root that had grown above ground near a short, old tree, conveniently twisted to provide an excellent seat with a view of the forest and small lake that this side of the rise the encampment was on overlooked. He could tell she was aware of him as he approached, so he said nothing, as she stared quietly into the distance, not turning as he sat on the ground next to her, but taking in the vastness of the earth and sky about her. The sky on the horizon where she looked was turning a lighter shade of blue slowly. The air was very calm.

He gazed into her face quietly, trying to read what was there: her eyes seemed sad, there was an emptiness about her, almost disbelief. It seemed she was not recollecting the events of a few nights ago, but trying to come to terms with… the sudden emptiness, the gap left by her parents, her family, her way of life disappearing. He looked over the view of the forest and lake, and mused that she seemed to be progressing well, all things considered. The spectrum of the sky began to shift as he watched, the deep navy and burst of stars receding and fading behind him to the west, and turning into a green and then a yellower tinge blending to the horizon in front of them.

He looked back at her, noticing her hair had become more dishevelled, her face somehow stoic in the twilight, and he noticed that clenched fist again, that she held gingerly on her knees: there was something she was holding in it.

"May I see?" he asked her softly, gesturing towards her hand when he got her attention. Her face twisted in protest, and she brought her fist closer to her chest protectively, but after a moment, she relented, slowly, carefully holding her hand out, just close enough, and uncurling her slender elven fingers.

In her hand was an acorn-like seed that sparkled silvery white and that shimmered in the twilight.

"Oh! That IS very special," the druid remarked, "that is the seed of one of the spirit trees. Did your parents give you that before-" he caught himself before he finished what he was saying, but she understood and nodded her head reticently in reply. "You need to take extra special care of that. The spirit trees are gone now – the home of your ancestral spirits, where your people commune with the elders and the yet-to-be-born-again. Now that they are gone, " her expression seemed to crack for a moment, tears welling in her eyes, but in the moment after, as he continued, her gaze was steady and clear again, "this seed is your hope for your people, your clan, to be born again – and to be reunited with your family-" he was startled for a moment as she suddenly tensed, desperately hopeful, with longing in her face, "…in spirit," he continued. She looked down at the seed with a certain awe, seeming more energetic and full of life, suddenly.

He reached towards it slowly, "May I? I can make it into a necklace for you, and protect it with magic." She proffered the seed to him, reluctant but trusting.

"I will be back with it in a moment," he said, standing, as he walked back to the shelter, and tapped an open-caged, sweet-smelling lantern, and fireflies began to fly about and glow, giving him a little extra light to work by.

The horizon was turning a golden orange, the sky above a pale baby-blue, and small clouds were blazing in the distance in lavenders, pinks, and orange. The stars had receded to the very furthest reaches of the sky, except for a couple bright ones in the east. [planets The little elf girl was looking down at the seed she now wore strung around her neck, the work done on it, with such a look of joy that it was the druid's turn to fear shedding a tear, as he broke some bark up and put it into a steaming pot over a small fire nearby.

An axe lay with its head buried in a chopping stump near them, but it looked as if little wood had been chopped in the area for quite some time. There was a stinky muddy patch a short walk away, with the biggest mushrooms of all kinds that Illel had ever seen, growing in the shade of a stand of tall trees. There was a path down to the river, where a small dock jutted into the water, with a long narrow boat pulled up onto the shore. She could hear the buzzing of bees from one tree nearby, see the little hidden nest where they swarmed about.

"Bzzz Bzzz!" she sounded at the druid as he savoured his steaming tea, before taking a sip of her own tea, which was heavily sweetened with honey. This game was so much fun!

"Very good! What else do you see?" the druid encouraged. She could see two songbirds on a branch in a tree nearby, singing to each other. Illel made a sing-song bird noise like the birds she heard and saw. The druid smiled at her and said, "what else?"

Next to them was a wild, haphazard, overgrown-looking garden of bushes and flowers and stones, with vegetables and berries and flowers, a wondrous cacophony of smells wafting towards them on a gentle breeze. Illel inhaled deeply and slowly through her nose, closing her eyes, taking it all in. She pointed gingerly toward a flower growing nearby where they sat.

"Yes, flowers too. But, what kinds of flowers? They're not all the same you know. They have different tastes, and smells, and looks and feels… if you listen close enough, their voices are different too!" Illel smiled shyly, shaking her head disbelievingly as he teased her. "This is dusky blue strawberry, and that is darrow cucumber," the druid explained to her as she walked through the plants. A little ways a part was another, similar garden, slightly more sheltered than the other, hidden from view by taller bushes around it. Illel wandered into that one, to the druid's dismay.

"That is a medicinal garden, little one…you're not ready to learn those yet…" he trailed off as she wandered in heedless. A beautiful, majestic deep violet flower caught her attention, and she pointed at it and looked askance. "Don't touch that little one; it is a rare flower, and it can be quite dangerous. That one is called black lotus. Come over here and finish your tea. The soup is almost ready." She wandered back to the fire obediently, as the druid bemused how she seemed drawn to beautiful, dangerous things. He wondered if her clan taught of such herbs and poisons to use, then decided there was no need for schooling in that just yet, whatever the case may be.

O O O

During the quiet, as they drank their soup, Illel's countenance grew distant, and forlorn in reminiscence, the cold tendrils of despair twisting into her soul despite the warm, bright clear sky of day. The druid slurped his soup noisily, then made like he was licking it up like a dog, which seem to amuse and draw a disdainful look from her, as she seemed to forget the day before for the moment. He plunged his face into the soup, then made a silly effort to get soup bits from his beard into his mouth with his tongue. Her face turned red and she kicked her feet at his silliness, cracking a bit of a smile, but she did not laugh.

They washed their faces and hands with water from a bucket, then he poured some on the fire, and blew at the billows of smoke as they rose. She seemed to enjoy the game at first, but then something seemed to strike a chord, and tears began to stream down her face as she stared blankly and mutely, forgetting what was in front of her. The druid Astyanax frowned disappointedly and doused the rest of the fire without fanfare.

OOO

They sat on the ground, with her few belongings spread on the ground between them. A small thick bow of green wood; a pair of toughened, treated leaf and wood-strip archery bracers that had the texture of leather; and delicate-looking boots of the same sort of material which was in fact exceedingly durable; a satchel of same with wrapped leaf food with the smell of berries and fruit coming from it, as well as a dagger that seemed made from a tooth; a small yellow faceted crystal.

The druid could sense the magic in these, an ancient and secret elvish magic learned from the ways of the fey; a magic not entirely unlike his own. The dagger and food seemed mostly mundane, he could not discern the purpose of the crystal – perhaps it was for some spiritual rite. He reached for the bow and asked, "May I see?" and examined it once she nodded.

"Living wood? It grows with you? The string is made of moonsilk? Does the bow speak to you in your mind?" The girl seemed puzzled, not understanding what he meant. "It responds to your thoughts and feelings?" he said, and this time she nodded. He tested the pull of the bow, and was surprised that the harder he pulled, the greater the pull of the bow. It was truly a bow that would grow with the archer, as she gained in strength. Moonsilk, he mused; he never knew such a string to have been broken by mundane means, and knew also it resonated with the mental powers of the Soroswol clan elves – it helped them to use some of their abilities. The bow itself probably enhanced these as well.

He cast a spell, and glowing runes were revealed on the bracers… the magic of which, seemed to allow an archer to fire more precisely, to time their shots, especially to avoid hitting friendly combatants near the target being fired at.

The runes on the boots seemed to suggest mental powers of bonding, of holding the wearer against a surface, besides being protected from the elements and wear. They likely helped a young elf to master their clan's secret of tree-running, running and staying on surfaces, like trees, without falling off, so they could literally run up and down trees. Remembering earlier, it occurred to him she must not have mastered these either, yet.

He flipped the knife in the air above his hand, flipped the grip, spun it in his hand; the weight was good, for throwing or fighting, but it seemed more a tool than a fighting weapon. He smiled at her, "I have just the thing…" and went back to the shelter, lifting a wide flatish rock, which seem to cover a stone enclosure, with various things in it. He pulled out some tools and some leather, and began to work away, while Illel hugged her knees and stared at her things. She tried flipping the knife around in her hand as the druid had, then tiring of that quickly, started gazing at the clouds that passed overhead, her hair blowing gently in the breeze. He returned with a sheath, that had a strap that could be adjusted.

"I suggest you put it on your ankle, but you can put it around your waist too, if need be, he said, and took the offered foot and fit the sheath there snugly, wrapping and tying the extra length slowly, making sure she was watching and saw how he did it. "Like that."

I think this is enough for one chapter.

Some notes:

Starts with the druid awakening, Illel is already up, sitting and staring quietly

The sun hasn't risen yet – the horizon is starting to glow, but the stars are still out

Thing about the druid having had put his cloak on her during the night, not realizing she wasn't shivering because of the cold

When sun comes up, describe the shelter and such

Druid asks her about the seed, other things she has; he has to guess and fill stuff in, ask the right questions, because she's not saying much

(maybe this part) tries to teach her to walk up things, the force arrow, teaches her about "life energy" and channelling it for different purposes (barbarian rage, wildrunner rage, how to alter her metabolism, her breathing)

Some other things to deal with maybe: the breaking of Illel's heirloom bow, the crafting of the new one; on hunting and killing – not to injure or torment life, but if you are to kill, to kill fully and not torment what you kill, to respect it's life; and on not turning away from things when you are forced to kill, but watching til the end, and on being intelligent about how you fight – maybe how a village is razed because she lashes back at some orcs who are hurting some people, so the orcs seek vengeance on the whole town.


End file.
